Charleston City Hall greets you here, built in 1801 on one of the most symbolically loaded corners in America. This building was not originally a city hall — it was constructed as the Charleston branch of the First Bank of the United States, part of Alexander Hamilton's controversial plan to establish a national banking system. When the bank's federal charter was not renewed, the city of Charleston purchased the building in 1818 and converted it to municipal use.
You are standing at the Four Corners of Law, the intersection of Broad and Meeting Streets, where four institutions of authority converge: the Federal Court, the State Court, City Hall, and St. Michael's Church — representing federal, state, municipal, and divine law respectively. Inside, the council chambers contain a notable art collection, including a celebrated portrait of George Washington painted by John Trumbull in 1792 from life — one of the few portraits for which Washington actually sat. The building has served as the seat of Charleston's government through the Civil War, Reconstruction, the great earthquake of 1886, and into the twenty-first century.
It is a place where the formal machinery of government has operated continuously against a backdrop of profound social upheaval, mostly within these walls and mostly invisible to the street outside.